This week on the show my guest is Deep Varma, Vice President of Data Engineering at real estate startup Trulia. Deep has run data engineering teams in silicon valley for well over a decade, and is now responsible for the engineering efforts supporting Trulia’s Big Data Technology Platform, which encompasses everything from Data acquisition & management to Data Science & Algorithms.

In the show we discuss all of that, with an emphasis on Trulia’s data engineering pipeline and their personalization platform, as well how they use computer vision, deep learning and natural language generation to deliver their product. Along the way, Deep offers great insights into what he calls offensive vs defensive data science, and the difference between data-driven decision making vs products. Another great interview, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Last week I announced the first anniversary of the podcast and I want to start today’s show this week by thanking everyone who’s participated in our anniversary contest so far. If you have not entered yet, click the button above or visit the Listener Appreciate Contest page for more details!

We asked you to comment on the show notes page or post an iTunes review and wow, did you deliver. Your stories have been personal, thoughtful, and downright encouraging. Here are a couple of our favorites:

I remember when Bill’s first review hit. The decision to switch to the interview format was very tough for me, but necessary for my efforts to be sustainable. Bill’s initial 2 star review really hurt. I think he said something about the interviews being too fluffy, like the Tim Ferriss of AI. I really took that to heart and was pumped when Bill raised his review to 4 stars. And now I’m super excited to see that I’ve earned Bill’s fifth star! Thanks, Bill!

That’s a ton of ground to have covered in a year, Andrew! Congrats! We’re so proud to have been a small part of your success!